Vienna in the time of Covid

After six months in lockdown, of some kind or another, Vienna is finally opening up. Like the first shoots of spring, little terraces have emerged in previously vacant spaces, cafés spill out onto pavements, nearby bars I didn’t know existed seem to have appeared overnight. I’m struck by a new buzz and din in the city I’ve lived in for the last eight months; a hidden energy that must have been there all along, in hibernation, yearning for release. 

Befitting of these Unprecedented Times, the upturn in activity at my local Covid testing centre is a sure sign of a subtle shift in daily life. The longer queues of the mostly young and unvaccinated form procedurally at Wiener Stadthalle (‘normally’ a concert venue and exhibition centre). All are braced for the wee stick up the beak which will water eyes and tickle throats but - surely? - open up a weekend of possibility. 

The staff are always professional yet sociable and on a couple of occasions my surname seemed to gladden and amuse the person checking my booking. A friendly woman thought it was of American origin, confirming that the junk food of the diaspora has a global resonance that the one-time clans of Skye and Islay apparently lack. “Macdonald! Really?!”, the guy said excitedly on my last visit. When I told him I’m from Scotland his face lit up. “Robertson!”, he exclaimed. We shared a moment of respect for the national captain and Klopp’s Liverpool, before I recited that, no, I don’t support Rangers or Celtic and that they’re a small team, you won’t have heard of them.

In this year’s absence of restaurants and bars, concerts and Christmas markets, cycling to these various testing facilities - as well as to Brexit appointments - has been one of the ways I’ve come to know the EU’s fifth largest city. We all remember our first time and mine was a quick PCR round the back of the car park at the Ernst Happel Stadium. Against the backdrop of a thick November fog which enveloped the sprawling second district, I stood under a tarpaulin white tent and dutifully gargled the salt water just a few yards from where Fernando Torres clinched the Euros for Spain in 2008. If that experience had a distinctly post-apocalyptic feel, the next was one of pure Rococo splendour at the 13th district’s Schönbrunn Palace. As the figure in the medical coat and visor bore down on my nostrils and drew the swab, I gazed up at the golden chandeliers and thought of the Hapsburgs. 

Not all of my appointments have been at historic sports arenas or imperial landmarks, but even trips to dusty bureaucratic offices have offered the chance to see new corners of Wien’s 23 districts. Often my rides take me along the Gürtel ring road, which stretches for 13km and separates the inner city districts 1-9 from the outer districts (including the 17th, where I live). It runs parallel to the famous Ringstrasse which encircles the Inner Stadt. The red-light district gives parts of the Gürtel a seedier vibe than the stately opulence of postcard Vienna, but there is an eclectic mix of outlets housed in its archways, from bike shops, to grungy bars to hairdressers. 

Within minutes on one of the cycle routes branching off from the Gürtel you'll find artistic neighbourhoods, multicultural marketplaces, spacious parks or charming city squares. A few kilometres further east lies the canal and eventually the Danube, with the long island in the middle of the river a hotspot for Wieners, especially in the summer. I’ve also been lucky to join my flatmates on some of the city hiking routes or ‘Stadtwanderweigs’, which start in the suburbs and lead you through winding woodland paths or up hills with panoramic views of Vienna. I’ve only managed to get stamps for 4 out of the 13 so have some catching up to do!

Strolling or pedalling around town, I’m continually struck by the astonishing grandeur of the seemingly limitless palaces, cathedrals and opera houses. Along with its renown for classical music and psychoanalysis, Vienna is perhaps best known for this lavish, regal architecture, and it seems to be rather proud of it too (note the fetching #ImperialBoy t-shirt in the gift shop of the otherwise postcolonial anthropology museum).

Yet perhaps the city’s most truly characteristic feature is its distinctive, high-quality social housing dotted all over town. Each of these buildings proudly displays the dates of construction, often accompanied by art or iconography of the labour movement. These projects are emblematic of the thriving municipal socialism of ‘Red Vienna’, the name for the period between 1918 and 1934, when the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria controlled the city and, briefly, the country as a whole. 

The collapse of the First Austrian Republic and the seizing of power by the ‘Austrofascists’, a few years before Hitler’s even-badder Nazis subsequently invaded, put an end to this initiative. However, it was resumed in the post-war years and the provision of affordable housing continues to be a political priority, unlike in much of the rest of Europe. The high share of subsidized homes also has a price-restricting effect on the private housing market and ensures that, even though Vienna is expensive in other ways, rent remains very affordable compared to other major European cities. Vienna sat just west of the iron curtain (though it is surprisingly further east than Zagreb, Prague and Llublijana) but the city has long been left-leaning, in contrast to the conservatism of much of the rest of Austria. This is evident in the most renowned of all of these complexes, Karl Marx-Hof in the 19th district, which at over a kilometre in length is the longest single residential building in the world.

As much as I enjoy noting each of these structures around the city, it’s hard not to feel a chill seeing the ones built in those interwar years. While there were clearly problems and contradictions in that early social-democratic era, they seem to represent a promise of equality and dignity for all that would soon be obliterated by the horrors of fascism. That intense struggle between the left and the right, manifested both in parliament and on the streets, has been a feature of this city for more than a century and is very much alive today.